A NORTH Yorkshire artist who gave up painting for 15 years is celebrating after holding a successful exhibition.

An exhibition of Elaine Brown's paintings was held at the Lucius Gallery, in Fossgate, York, on Saturday.

Until last year, Ms Brown, 37, had not painted since she graduated from St Martin's College, in London, 15 years ago.

She said: "When I left, I made a conscious decision not to carry on painting. I didn't want to do something purely for money. I wanted to do things that I wanted, not doing things that I knew would sell.

"Then, about a year ago, the timing was right, my children were a bit older and I started painting again."

Ms Brown, who also works as a graphic designer with The Northern Echo's sister paper, the York Evening Press, describes her work as "colourfield painting".

Although she does not want to be labelled as an abstract artist, her work is a kind of minimal abstract painting that focuses on the emotion of the colours in each piece.

She said: "The exhibition was wonderful and I managed to sell three pieces. It's a great exhibition space and there was always someone coming into the gallery."

Ms Brown's next exhibitions will be with the Bare Wall Gallery at Wheldrake, near York, in April. She also hopes to exhibit at galleries in London in the future.

Published: 07/02/2005